Brief History

The Department of Distance Education of the School of Continuing and Distance Education began as the Correspondence Unit of the then Institute of Adult Education in 1973. During this period the Unit was concerned with the production and facilitation of learning materials for the General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary level in English, Economics, General Science and Mathematics among others.The Unit was later christened the Distance Education Unit to correspond with the changing trends. This continued until the GCE was phased out.

In 1995 after the West African Distance Education Conference held  at GIMPA, Accra, a new concept of how to operate the distance education was mooted. In this direction, institutions were offered specific programmes for the public Universities. University of Ghana was mandated to concentrate on the Humanities. As a result Prof W. A. Assumaning of the Chemistry Department was appointed the first Coordinator to organize the Distance Education Centre for the Distance Education Programme in 1995. During this period four Departments namely English, Sociology, Political Science and Religions agreed to offer their courses through the distance mode and so started to develop their courses. Later on Prof Elom Dovlo was appointed coordinator to continue the programme. In 2006, the programme was brought to the then Institute of Adult Education to manage under Mr. Reuben A. Aggor. It was at this stage that a University of Ghana Distance Education Implementation Programme was established under the Pro-Vice Chancellor Prof Kwesi Yankah. The committee  reorganized the programme and started training new course writers in Economics, Geography and Resource development, Sociology and Linguistics.

In 2006 Dr. Samuel K. Badu-Nyarko was appointed Co-coordinator in which History and Social Work were included in the Humanities as well as BA (Administration). The Bachelor of Arts Degree programme by Distance Education was launched in November 2007 with first batch of 907 students admitted and Matriculated in February 2008. The programme has grown from few courses to 10 courses in the Humanities and five programmes in the Business School including Accounting, Human Resource Management, Health Services Management, Banking and Finance and Public Administration. Currently courses are being offered in B.Sc  (Nursing) at Level 200 as well as BA Information Technology.

The programme is currently using the University Learning Platform called SAKAI to deliver some of the courses alongside the print materials and face-to-face tutorials in 9 learning centres namely Accra, Koforidua, Bolgatanga, Sunyani, Tsito, Tamale, Wa, Takoradi and Kumasi.